The Kite Runner

by Khaled Hosseini

Discussion Guides and Activity Ideas

ABOUT THE BOOK

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1965 where his father was a diplomat and his mother taught Farsi and history. The family left Afghanistan in 1976 when Hosseini’s father was posted to the Afghan Embassy in Paris. Following the 1978 coup and the subsequent Russian invasion, the Hosseinis emigrated to the United States, receiving political asylum in 1980. The family settled in San Jose, California where his father initially found work as a driving instructor, later becoming an Eligibility Officer dispensing welfare to needy families, many from the Afghan community. Hosseini is now a physician and lives with his wife and two children in Northern California. The Kite Runner, Hosseini’s first novel and, reputedly, the first to be written in English by an Afghan, met with great critical and popular acclaim when it was published in 2003.

DISCUSSION STARTERS

  • The novel begins “I became what I am today at the age of twelve.” To what is Amir referring? Is his assertion entirely true? What other factors have helped form his character? How would you describe Amir?

  • Amir had never thought of Hassan as his friend, despite the evident bond between them, just as Baba did not think of Ali as his friend. What parallels can be drawn between Amir and Hassan’s relationship, and Baba and Ali’s? How would you describe the relationship between the two boys? What makes them so different in the way they behave with each other? What is it that makes Amir inflict small cruelties on Hassan? Did you guess at the true relationship between them?

  • The theme for this year’s Community Value is Human Worth and Dignity: “Celebrating the diversity of all people: recognizing our differences, our sameness, holding dear the life each of us has been given; viewing others with tolerance, kindness, and compassion.” Discuss how the people in the book do or do not exemplify this value and whether they change as the story progresses.

  • After Amir wins the kite running tournament, his relationship with Baba undergoes significant change. However, while they form a bond of friendship, Amir is still unhappy. What causes this unhappiness and how has Baba contributed to Amir’s state of mind? Why does the relationship between the two eventually return to the way it was before the tournament?

  • It is Amir’s dearest wish to please his father. To what extent does he succeed in doing so and at what cost? What kind of man is Baba? How would you describe his relationship with Amir, and with Hassan? How does that relationship change and what prompts those changes?

  • Hosseini vividly describes Afghanistan, both the privileged world of Amir’s childhood and the stricken country under the Taliban. How did his descriptions differ from ideas that you may already have had about Afghanistan? What cultural differences become evident in the American passages in the novel? How easy do the Afghans find it to settle in the U.S.?

  • On the drive to Kabul Farid says to Amir “You’ve always been a tourist here, you just didn’t know it.” What is Farid implying? What do you think of this implication?
     

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES

(Information compiled from Bloomsbury and Penguin Putnam Publishers reading group guides)

 

Suggested Further Reading

Fiction
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem (2003)
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels (1997)
The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra (2004)
Warlord’s Son by Dan Fesperman (2004)

Non-Fiction
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad (2003)
An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan by Jason Elliot (2001)
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi (Iran) (2003)
West of Kabul, East of New York by Tamim Ansary (2002)
Zoya’s Story: An Afghan Woman’s struggle for Freedom by Zoya (2002)

Islam, Empire of Faith (DVD, Video) (2001)
Islam: A Short History by Karen Armstrong (2000)
(Many more titles on the subject also available in the Scott County Library System)
 
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